Calling to Confirm

2012 -
11.15

Today’s Forum carries a story about a young man who’s being denied the rite of confirmation based on a facebook post in which he expressed his support of a NO vote regarding the Minnesota marriage amendment.

Now I realize most readers would expect me to go on a rant about the evils of organized religion and the Catholic Church in particular.

Not going to happen.

I’ll always scream loudly when any organization attempts to force its point of view on all of society, but that’s not what’s going on here. Granted, they tried to force their ideals on every citizen in MN, and sane heads in MN said “Yeah. No Thank You.”

The church is standing by the position it’s had forever and regrettably, they’re denying a right of passage to one of its members who does not agree.

That’s sad.

The article seems to take the tone the young man made his point as a matter of social justice, not personal sexuality.

My point (and I do have one) is that if you read the article closely, you’ll see this young man’s reaction is very similar that of many gay individuals who grew up as a part of a conservative denomination. He speaks of his love of his church and his faith, and a sadness that the faith that loved and enveloped him from the day of his birth, has closed its doors to him.

That is a very common experience amongst gay individuals. I have a theory that faith is often MORE important to young gay men and women because of the search for understanding of why they are the way they are, and a need for acceptance by a large body of people.

The most logical place to look for that acceptance would seem to be the church that has spent your entire life telling you about God’s love for you.

Well, unless you’re gay or support gay people.

Today’s Gay Agenda: Hope Lennon has the opportunity to find another church that will fill his needs. The beauty, pageantry, and rich history of the Catholic faith is pretty hard to find in today’s contemporary churches. However the spirituality and connection with a higher power is.

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That gives me a great idea for a blog post: how much easier life was when minorities knew their place. First it was women, then blacks, now the homos and it looks like Hispanics/Latinos are going to be the next group, even though they have equal protection I suspect they’re going to want their voices heard.

bzzzz.. you lose and are oh so wrong. If marriage was a privilege you wouldn’t have been able to choose your spouse. As a right you were allowed to choose your wife. With that being the case people should have the right to marry any one consenting adult.

Bishop Wilkowski, thank you for reading TGA and making your kind offer. I suspect the love of Christ shines through in your ministry. I hope you take the opportunity to reach out to this young man and let him know God’s love for him hasn’t changed.

Last winter we decided to take our daughter out of confirmation (ELCA) about six weeks early. Every week she either watched a gay friendly church service on tv, attended a few gay friendly churches in Fargo (50 miles away), wrote a sermon, did volunteer work etc. This was after 2years of everyone in the class saying every week that they learned nothing in class. My daughter was in every Sunday school class, taught Sunday School and Bible School, Youth Group, and is the representative for the state synod in the spring…but was not allowed to be confirmed. Meanwhile, kids that did none of those things and had never stepped foot in church other than showing up for a handful of classes got confirmed…and were never seen again! Okay…that’s my rant. All because I wanted her to experience a gay friendly church experience!